Cat in a Kiwi Con: A Midnight Louie Mystery (Midnight Louie Mysteries)

click here for more details, find new or used items	Carole Nelson Douglas Our price £4.40 (£4.68) New from £2.32 Used from £1.49 Pages: 432 (Mass Market Paperback) ISBN: 0812584252 Pub: Forge Pub date: 2001-04 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 540732

Reader Reviews:

Cat Copes With Convention (4/4 people found this helpful)

In a neighbourhood copious with cats, it was inevitable that someone would confront me with this series. Douglas' twist of a cat acting as a major character [although not the primary one as the "Midnight Louie [sic] Mystery" on the dust jacket implies] is handled with finesse. The cat is observant, independent and adaptable. Thankfully, "Louie" isn't over-anthropomorphised. While instrumental, he isn't the primary sleuth you might expect. Instead, Douglas uses her feline character to air some causes she's concerned about - in this case the threatened extinction of Kiwis [the birds, not the European "pakeha"] in New Zealand. On the other hand, she plops some invective into the narrative against selected targets, of which more later.

There are some murders to keep the plot within the "mystery" genre, some of which are leftovers from previous books. These tend to be added to keep your interest. Will they be solved here or go on to further revival later in the series? There is the usual rivalry of "cops" versus "private" sleuths, although none of the "private" characters are in the business. Instead, one is a "public relations whiz", one a magician and one a former priest. Douglas takes these three on a merry mazurka of personal relationships. Only one of these characters seems to have a clear view of the assigned role. Douglas has fun with her creations, but character development isn't her forte. Even the repartee doesn't achieve the "clever" level that some mystery writers attain. Perhaps this is Douglas' way of imparting realism.

The author's real strength is in descriptive prose. She shines at that. In this book there are many opportunities to show her stuff as it takes place around a "sci-fi" convention. Although she correctly disparages the term "sci-fi", she seems unaware of Harlan Ellison's long-standing suggestion "SF" be rendered "Speculative Fiction". Her knowledge of television and film SF is ample. Characters relocated from their fictional realm into the convention's arena with aplomb. Writers clash, roles are depicted and characterisations dissected. For unexplained reasons, Douglas lashes out at Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine character from Star Trek: Voyager. The reason for her calumny seems focussed on the physical, which seems out of place in a "feminist" writer. The repetition of her scurrility against this one character becomes boring, especially when she transfers it to one of her minor characters.

Usually, in such a series reading the first volume is mandatory, but that constraint doesn't seem to apply, here. So much of this tale is interwoven with past events, one has the feeling reading the others would be repetitious. This book, one of the latest, is a good introduction to Douglas. The plot line is convoluted enough to satisfy the most demanding mystery buff. The SF/fantasy environment allows Douglas to bring in "weird" characters who impinge but lightly on the story. It's good beach/cottage reading material, but of limited scope and less interest. The whole series would be a chore, unless you have an extended holiday. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

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